The descendants of the <a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=DESC&db=clore&id=I15262"> Johann Georg and Anna Barbara Majer Volck Utz family </a>and their friends are having a family reunion Saturday, August 20, 2011 at the <a href=" http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=607%20Lillard's%20Ford%20Rd.%2C%20Brightwood%2C%20VA%2022715&safe=on&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

">Brightwood Ruritan Club’s meeting hall at 607 Lillard’s Ford Rd., Brightwood, VA 22715</a>.  The Utz reunion has been held annually for many years at this location on the 3^rd Saturday in August.  Mark your calendar!

On the agenda at the 2011 reunion will be a report from the Germanna Utz Family Committee on its accomplishments to help preserve Utz family photos, stories, and genealogy with a goal of publishing a new Germanna Record on the Utz family in cooperation with the Germanna Foundation.

The ancestors of Georg Utz lived in Haundorf, Bavaria [photo courtesy of John Blankenbaker], just over the line from modern Baden-Wuerttemberg.  Georg Utz moved to Wagenbach, an estate farm near Hueffenhardt in Baden, where he married the widow Anna Barbara (Majer) Volck in 1709.  Their Virginia-born children were the ancestors of many Madison-county families who were also part of the 1717 emigration:  Michael Utz married Susanna Crigler; Mary Margaret Utz married John Blankenbaker; and George Utz married Mary Kaefer.  More information on these families is published in John Blankenbaker’s The Second Colony and Other Pioneers (Germanna Record 18, 2008), for sale to the public by the Germanna Foundation.

The Germanna Foundation is preparing a poster for community outreach showing the ancestry of  <a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=clore&id=I00594&style=TEXT

">James C. Utz (1917-1995)</a>.  The Utz ancestry chart effectively communicates that many people in the Piedmont of Virginia have multiple lines of Germanna descent stretching back centuries and may not know it.  Your financial support of the Germanna Foundation makes this kind of historical research and outreach possible.

Utz descendants and friends are bringing copies of Utz family history, pictures and artifacts to photograph and discuss. The building will open at 5 p.m., dinner will be at 6:30 p.m. and those attending are asked to bring a covered dish and a dessert.  For information, call Utz descendant Andrea Smith at (540) 672-4570.  Updates on the Germanna Utz Family Committee will be posted at http://www.germanna.org/node/413.